


Passengers

by TerenceFletcher



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 13x05, Coda, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 15:51:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12729582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerenceFletcher/pseuds/TerenceFletcher
Summary: A little coda to ep 13x05 — Sam, Dean, and Castiel are driving home.





	Passengers

“What I don't understand, is how we didn't end up in a ditch,” Sam says after an hour of silence.

Dean barely listens, his mind preoccupied with some critically important things he has to take care of as they get home. Right when Sam speaks, Dean is in the middle of a thorough comparative analysis of restraining capabilities of holy oil versus good old handcuffs. Handcuffs don’t involve fire and in general sound somewhat more appealing — especially if used on a bed head.

“What?”

Sam sighs. “I mean… After you got that call? I’m wondering how you went on driving straight.”

“I’m just an A-plus driver,” Dean grins. “Sammy, I used to drive with a ghoul-pyre in the back seat.”

“It’s different.”

Dean knows that it is. What he doesn’t know, is how he managed to keep his left hand at the steering wheel after he’d heard the voice on his phone. Probably all of them were lucky that the road was arrow-straight. There and about ten miles more. Or maybe all the way up to that god-forsaken place where Cas was waiting for them.

“Yeah,” he mumbles and looks in the rearview mirror. Cas is sleeping soundly, his head leaned cozily onto the back of the seat as if he’s never left there. His lips and eyebrows tremble like in a dream.

Everything about him seems so familiar — and so new. Dean recalls the feeling of their first hug in the neon lights of the payphone booth, their frantic, erratic movements, hardly even looking like a greeting. If this wasn’t a rendition of a win, then Dean doesn’t know what was.

Dean smiles to himself and stares back at the road.

All of a sudden, he remembers their previous  _resurrection_  hugs. They were fewer than actual resurrections, he notes to himself and winces at the lost opportunities. In fact, now that he thinks about it, he never hugged Cas after his coming back from the dead. After losing him for a while — yes, but not after him being dead.  _So dead_ , he adds mentally, struggling against the urge to immediately fill the hugging gap he’d let happen.

But Sam is staring at him mutely, and Dean grips the wheel and keeps driving.

He gets back to his thoughts and having weighed the options, dismisses all of them. He never was good at keeping Cas away from trouble, wasn’t he? He should be happy that at least now Cas is in the back seat of the Impala, the safest place in the universe. And then... and then they’ll see what happens.

Dean sneaks another glance in the mirror. Cas is frowning in his sleep, and instinctively, Dean frowns too, a bit anxious. They hardly had a chance to talk, and Dean has no idea what state Cas is in now: an angel or a human. Whatever it is, Cas is clearly exhausted and needs rest. Talks can wait.

Dean doesn’t know yet what he’ll say, though. There’s too much he can — he needs to — say, and at the same time there’s pretty little left unsaid. Not after the stare they shared. That silent moment, Dean is certain, was the loudest silence he ever heard.

What a blind idiot he was if it only took him to lose Cas to realize how much Cas really meant to him?

“Dean, watch the road.”

Reluctantly, Dean drags his gaze away from the mirror. Sam is right, now it would be too damn stupid to get them all killed in a crash.

“You know what,” he says, pulling over, “you’d better take the wheel.”

Surprised, Sam raises his eyebrow. “You trust me?”

“No. But I trust myself even less.” He opens the door and smiles at Sam, “I’m gonna be an A-plus passenger tonight.”

He crawls into the back seat and quietly settles himself close to Cas. The moment he adjusts his breathing to Cas’s and freezes still, all his anxiety is suddenly gone.

Sam pulls back to the road and hits the gas.

They are heading to Lebanon at full throttle, and once in a long while, Dean is really enjoying Baby’s engine purr.


End file.
